Web Based GIS for Public
Participation Decision Making in the UK
Richard KingstonSchool of GeographyUniversity of LeedsEngland

Abstract

This paper outlines current
research examining the potential of the WWW as a means of increasing public
participation in environmental decision making. The paper considers traditional
methods of public participation and argues that new internet based technologies
have the potential to widen participation in the planning system. Evidence
is provided of the potential and actual benefit of on-line spatial decision
making systems in the UK through three real environmental decision making
problems at the local, regional and national scale.

Introduction

The research which is outlined
in this paper is part of a wider Programme of work currently being undertaken
in the UK. The Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) Virtual
Society? Programme aims to examine if there are fundamental shifts
taking place in how people behave, organise and interact as a result of
emerging electronic technologies.

The rise of the Internet and
the World Wide Web (WWW) has created many opportunities for those involved
in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and decision support research.
Recently many GIS have appeared on the Web (Carver, in press). These systems
tend to vary in nature from simple demonstrations and references to GIS
use through to FAQ’s and more complex on-line GIS and spatial decision
support systems. The level of functionality among these GIS systems is
also variable giving the general public, or at least those with a connection
to the Web, access to a variety of both GIS systems and data. With the
potential increased availability, previous criticism of GIS as an elitist
technology (Pickles, 1995) may no longer be valid. GIS and the WWW are
ever evolving technologies with the potential for public use allowing greater
involvement in environmental decision making and "they can design GIS
primarily for expert use or they can make them accessible to the lay professional
and even to the general public" (Innes and Simpson, 1993, p.231).

To gain an understanding of
the potential benefit and the processes by which the public could use,
interact and benefit from such systems requires a comprehensive research
agenda which can develop, live test and monitor such activities. The research
being undertaken by the authors aims to investigate these questions in
both a theoretical and practical way. The project is working closely with
several organisations in the UK: Kirklees Metropolitan Council Environment
Unit, Colne Valley Trust, the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and
UK Nirex Ltd. in developing prototype systems that are designed to address
real decision making problems. These are essential both in providing a
substantive focus for the research and development work and in securing
widespread public interest.

Aims and Objectives

The overall aim of the research
is to critically examine the role of GIS and the WWW in enhancing current
decision making processes and infrastructures. In particular, the research
concentrates on what role GIS and the WWW are beginning to play in improving
public participation in local environmental decisions making in the UK
planning system. Specific objectives in addressing these aims are:

build on current work in developing
the ideas and theory of participatory decision making and cyberdemocracy
with specific reference to the potential role of GIS based Virtual Decision
Making Environments (VDMEs) on the WWW;

carry a out a detailed and comprehensive
review of relevant published material, both from standard bibliographic
and on line sources;

conduct extensive on line experiments
using prototype VDMEs to analyse user responses, evaluate the potential
of these systems in democratising the decision making process and assist
in the development of new theory in participatory decision making;

carry out questionnaire and follow
up interview surveys of relevant stake holders to solicit opinions and
collect data on the public’s role in decision making and on the usefulness
of VDMEs; and

draw conclusions from published
material, experimental results, opinion survey responses and developed
theory as to the future role of GIS based VDMEs on the WWW in improving
public involvement in environmental decision making and ultimately accountability
of decisions made.

This research has potentially
far reaching implications for decision making within the UK planning system
and other similar democratic processes. Opportunities for direct public
involvement and participation in environmental decision making at all geographical
scales is currently limited in the UK. Given the appropriate political
will and sufficient public interest, the ideas, methods and theory being
developed in this project could contribute to radical improvements in decision
making practice and policy formulation over the next 5 to 10 years.

Decision Support via the
World Wide Web

By providing access to appropriate
data, spatial planning models and GIS via user friendly web browsers the
WWW has the potential to develop into a flexible medium for enhanced public
involvement in the planning process. Several web based systems can now
be found on line but the majority of these tend to be demonstration systems
using sample data which are not necessarily problem specific and are therefore
of little interest to the majority of the public. Many of these systems
merely provide information in a uni-directional form such as listing planning
applications and publishing information about development plans. The web
servers provide information to the client but there is no method by which
the client subsequently feeds information back to the server. In the UK
Devon County Council’s Structure
Plan document was put on-line allowing access to documents outlining
the Council’s strategic policies and proposals (Devon County Council, 1998).
Details on how to object to the proposals and the times, dates and places
of meeting were also provided. The system lacked any ability for the public
to interact with the plan by populating the system with their own information,
ideas or objections and was thus uni-directional in operation.

The level of participation
in this web based approach is fixed within the bottom two rungs of the
public participation ladder (illustrated in figure 1); the ‘public right
to know’ and ‘informing the public’. While the Devon web site
provides an opportunity for the ‘public right to object’ this is
mainly through the provision of a postal address to send objections. An
e-mail address is also provided, but if the system were accessed from a
public terminal in a library or community centre for example the user may
not necessarily have an e-mail account. The use of a simple on-line form
in the web page could easily overcome this problem. The London Borough
of Brent have moved a step closer to increasing public participation in
local democracy by holding web based forums to discuss local environmental
problems such as Local Agenda 21 issues (Brent Council, 1998). This kind
of initiative takes a further step in increasing public participation by
allowing the discussion and debate of local issues, and could be regarded
as step 4 in Figure 1 — ‘Public participation in defining interests,
actors and agendas’.

Figrue1: The Public Participation
Ladder

(adapted from Weidemann
and Femers, 1993)

In order to achieve even greater
degrees of involvement in environmental decision making the public need
to be provided with systems which allow them to create virtual spaces.
Such systems should allow participants to proceed through the following
four stage model:

explore the decision problem;

experiment with choice alternatives;

formulate one or more decision
choices; and

feedback and evaluation of the
system.

Exploration of the decision problem
is an essential part of the users learning process. Having direct and easy
access to the information relating to a decision problem is a key element
in learning about its various facets. In this context, information should
be available on the spatial and aspatial aspects of the decision problem.
These are likely to take the form of maps and other forms of spatial data
(aerial photographs, satellite images etc.) as well as other media such
as text, sound, images and video (see Schiffer, 1995). These should work
together to convey the historical and policy context of the decision problem
as well as its physical, social, cultural and economic setting. Existing
community and individual ideas and/or perspectives on the decision problem
should be presented where known. Through learning about all aspects of
a decision problem, the user should begin to modify existing ideas and
generate new ones. These can be fed back into the system as and when appropriate.

Experimentation with choice
alternatives is also an essential part of the learning process. Achievable
solution alternatives can be identified and fed into the decision space,
while unfeasible or conflict generating alternatives discarded. These kinds
of approach, essentially ‘What if?’ scenarios, are fundamental to many
analyses undertaken by a GIS. With this in mind web based GIS should also
be capable of allowing the user to:

Formulation of decision choices
should aim to maximise consensus and minimise conflict. This is often a
difficult task to achieve particularly if the decision problem is complex,
but it may be possible to identify the best compromise solution which will
ultimately help to maximise the acceptability of the final decision made.
The complex spatial and aspatial aspect of environmental decision making
results in many choice alternatives being generated. The ability to formulate
decision choices based on exploration and experimentation is an essential
part of any web based decision support system.

The final stage in the model,
feedback and evaluation of the system, is important for both the client
user and server. Feedback to users throughout the decision process is essential
to inform how and why particular decision choice alternatives have been
identified and also keeps clients aware of how they are formulating their
decision choices. Evaluation and feedback of the system by users is also
essential to allow server administrators and designers to improve and clarify
the systems. As decision alternatives are identified and feedback in both
directions builds up continuous changes are likely which will be of benefit
to the system as a whole and improve the ability to maximise final decisions.

Traditional vs. On-line
Public Participation

Public participation in local
environmental decision making, particularly in the UK planning system has
traditionally tended to focus on council planning meetings. This is often
in an atmosphere of ‘them and us’ with the authoritative decision
makers holding all the knowledge, expertise and information, more often
than not positioned on a platform with the general public down below in
a less favourable physical and psychological position. It is often the
case in these more traditional settings that a vocal minority (activists)
dominate the public’s viewpoint with many individual citizens hesitating
to express their concerns and opinions, and "rarely if ever emerge as
definable actors in the development process" (Healey et.al. 1988).
This often leaves many people resisting from expressing their concerns,
opinions and viewpoints when they may have equally, if not more, valid
points to make. Traditionally public participation has been limited to
the public right to know, informing the public and the public right to
object. The ability to define interests, the actors, determine the agenda,
assess risks, recommend solutions and partake in the final decision has
traditionally been closed to the public. As figure 1 illustrates the opening
up of decision making processes may lead to public involvement further
up the participation ladder.

The use of the WWW in such
situations has the potential to break down some of the barriers to participation
by taking away certain psychological elements which the public face when
expressing their points of view at public meetings. As Graham (1996, p.2)
argues, the Internet will "generate a new public sphere supporting interaction,
debate, new forms of democracy and ‘cyber cultures’ which feed back to
support a renaissance in the social and cultural life of cities". Considering
that most people’s concerns regarding their surroundings involve spatial
entities (mental maps, landmarks etc.) the use of GIS on the WWW has great
potential for popular involvement. Many studies have investigated the ways
people perceive and relate to information displayed on a map and how maps
can interpret and display information in different ways (Keates, 1996,
Wood, 1993). Most people now have concerns over environmental decisions
ranging from Local Agenda 21 issues (UNCED, 1992) which have global and
local perspectives, to the location of controversial open cast coal sites
and smaller scale less contentious developments such as the locating of
a new community centre or public library.

In addition to helping answer
questions pertinent to new technologies and the public’s role in environmental
decision making, a significant contribution to the continuing development
of theory in the field of decision making is envisaged. This may be achieved
through the analysis of web access logs to track the decisions made by
users of the on-line systems being developed in this on-going project.
Research in the UK is beginning to collect and analyse quantitative and
qualitative data on:

the role of social context;

spatial scale and locality in
spatial decision making;

how people perceive and make
spatial decisions;

how people react and interact
with on-line technology and public GIS;

how existing decision making
institutions and individuals see the role of the general public developing
in the future of environmental decision making; and

how the general public see their
own role in environmental decision making.

There is very little understanding
concerning current and future uses of the Internet by the public. Recent
surveys have identified that on-line ‘surfing’ often substitutes
watching the television and the extent to which the Internet will be used
for leisure and entertainment dominated by the ‘Nintendo’ generation
as opposed to more constructive, informative two-way interaction and use
is, as yet, unknown (MORI, 1998). The biggest barrier to participation
through on-line methods remains the current lack of mainstream access to
the Internet and the World Wide Web in the UK. National Government policy
in the UK is to increase access to the ‘information superhighway’
through the provision of public access terminals in libraries and public
buildings (CCTA GIS, 1998). The Government have also negotiated cheap access
for state schools. One of the major problems is the lack of free local
telephone calls, which is commonplace in North America, but extremely limited
in the UK. Recent surveys (NOP, 1997 and NOP, 1998) estimate that around
a quarter of UK households have a PC indicating that access to the technology
and its use is widespread, but on-line activity is restricted to approximately
half of them (i.e. 25% have a PC but only around 15% are on-line).

Case Studies

Notwithstanding the current
limited access in the UK studies are being undertaken to investigate the
potential of on-line GIS systems. Research is engaging with users at three
spatial scales: local, regional and national. This is shown in Table 1.
The village based case study has already taken place and work is now underway
on the regional and national case studies.

Table 1: Case Studies

Description

Locale

Scale

Problem-type

End-user(s)

Village-based "Planning For Real" exercise

Slaithwaite, West Yorkshire

Local

Multiple issue

Kirklees Metropolitan Council and Colne Valley Trust

Evaluation of the potential for regeneration of natural forest cover

Yorkshire Dales National Park, North Yorkshire

Regional

Single issue

Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority

Siting a radioactive waste repository

United Kingdom

National

Single issue

United Kingdom Nirex Limited

Virtual Slaithwaite

A Planning for Real (PFR)
exercise arranged in the village of Slaithwaite by Colne Valley Trust (CVT),
a local community action group, for early June 1998 emerged as a good case
study to live test a web based GIS. PFR is an idea developed as a means
of getting local people more closely involved in local planning decisions
through active participation and interaction with large scale models of
a community. The Slaithwaite PFR exercise was co-ordinated for the CVT
by planning consultants The Neighbourhood Initiative Foundation and part
funded by the local council. A 1:1,000 scale three dimensional model of
a 2km2 area of the Slaithwaite village and valley was constructed
by the CVT and the planning consultants with the help of local school children.
This was used as a focus for local discussion about planning issues within
the village. Local people were invited to register their views about particular
issues by placing flags with written comments on to appropriate locations
on the model. The results of this exercise were then collated by the consultants
NIF, and were then subsequently fed back into the planning process through
appropriate policy documents and plan formulation mechanisms.

The Slaithwaite PFR exercise
provided this research project with an ideal opportunity to develop, pilot
and live test a simple VDME that mirrored the functionality of the physical
PFR model. This was called "Virtual Slaithwaite" and can still be used
on-line. The virtual version of the exercise was launched on the web along
side the physical PFR model at a local village event organised and run
by CVT. Six networked Windows NT machines installed with Netscape Communicator
4.06 were available throughout the event for public use.

The design of the system revolves
around a Java map application called GeoTools
(Macgill and Turton, 1998) that allows the user to perform simple spatial
query and attribute input operations (see figure 2). Using this Java map
applet, users can view a map of Slaithwaite, perform zoom and pan operations
to assist in visualisation and navigation, ask such questions as "what
is this building?" and "what is this road?" (spatial query) and then make
suggestions about specific features identified from the map (attribute
input). All user input is stored in the web access logs for future analysis
and feedback into the planning process. In this manner a community database
can be created, representing the range of views and feeling about planning
issues in the locale.

The small window in the top
left hand corner of the screen displays what has been selected and the
‘Instructions and Help’ window changes to a form which can be filled
in with the comments and suggestions regarding the selected feature. Depending
on the type of feature selected will depend on the type of form provided.
If a buildings feature is selected the form illustrated in figure 3 below
will be provided. Other features, such as open spaces, the river or canal
provide a free form text box allowing the user to type what ever they wish.
This is then ‘sent’ to the system for future analysis. When the user has
finished they exit the system and are provided with a series of questions
asking them how they felt about using the system and they are given the
opportunity to make any comments.

Figure 3: Choice Menu

National Park Reforestation

Present day forest cover in
the Yorkshire Dales National Park is much reduced in comparison to the
natural conditions that prevailed prior to human settlement. The Dales
have been deforested and farmed intensively for hundreds of years creating
a largely artificial landscape, albeit currently managed with conservation
ideals in mind. With the current down trend in upland farming practices
attention is being focused on conservation, habitat regeneration and leisure
activities. The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA) wish to
increase the natural forest cover in the park by 50% over the next 25 years
as part of their park wide plans for habitat regeneration. These plans
are outlined in the document The Dales Woodland Strategy (YDNPA,
1995). The question remains, however, as to which areas of the park should
be reforested. This is a problem best addressed by a combination of GIS,
environmental modelling and public participation.

Work is underway in collaboration
with the YDNPA to collate the necessary GIS data and design a web based
system that will allow a wide range of user stakeholders, including local
residents, farmers, land owners, park visitors and YDNPA representatives,
to identify areas that are both suitable and acceptable for natural forest
regeneration. This is likely to focus on a two stage approach involving
GIS based modelling to identify areas best suited for regeneration of natural
forest cover, and user focused participatory mapping techniques to identify
which of the best suited areas are most acceptable to park residents and
users. The system will be live tested on the web and via PC access points
located in park visitor centres. Figure 3 below illustrates the National
Park system showing land cover data with the ‘Help and Information’ menu
of the left hand side. The Java applet is capable of handling complex maps
containing many data layers and its associated attribute information. The
ability to incorporate VRML is also being investigated in this case study
allowing the user to visualise their final decision in a 3-D environment
after running the model to identify suitable planting areas.

The third case study under
development is being carried out in collaboration with United Kingdom Nirex
Limited (NIREX). NIREX is the organisation entrusted with the responsibility
of managing and disposing of Britain’s radioactive waste. Modest quantities
of intermediate (ILW) and higher quantities of low level radioactive waste
(LLW) have been created by the nuclear power industry, Ministry of Defence
and medical/research establishments over the last 50 years.

Much of the country’s LLW
have been disposed of at Drigg near Sellafield in Cumbria. This site has
a limited life and ILWs have been stored pending a suitable disposal route.
This creates the need for a new repository to be developed sometime in
the next 50 years. Again, the question is where? Previous site searches
have suffered from a lack of public participation giving rise to lack of
trust. The resulting Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) reaction and subsequent
political indecision has led to several failed attempts to develop chosen
sites (Openshaw et al., 1989). NIREX is now pursuing a much more open approach
to the site search through increased public consultation and participation
in an attempt to reach an acceptable solution.

With this in mind the project
is collaborating with NIREX to develop a VDME approach to increased public
involvement in the radioactive waste repository siting problem. This is
building on existing work and expertise in this field. A simple VDME has
existed on the web for the last three years that demonstrates the capabilities
of GIS based approaches to public participation in difficult siting decisions.
The current case study will further develop the principles established
by the web site using more detailed and comprehensive datasets, a redesigned
user interface and greater user control and input. This takes advantage
of the significant improvements in web authoring tools and software, such
as Java applets and advanced browser software. Data and expertise are being
supplied by NIREX and the system developed here will act as a prototype
for a full public consultation exercise planned by NIREX in the wake of
the House of Lords Enquiry into the Management of Radioactive Waste.

Decision Processes and
System Design

The flow chart in figure 5
illustrates the decision process for the Yorkshire Dales system, although
similar processes are applied to both the Slaithwaite and Nirex on-line
systems. The user is first presented with a request for several pieces
of information to help build up a profile. This information is linked to
the decisions they then make all the way through the system from start
to finish. This allows decision trees to be monitored and analysed in association
with the profile of the individual user providing useful insights into
the decisions different types of people make. Stage 2 of the system introduces
the user to the decision problem through a series of hypertext files. These
can range from information explaining the data available for analysis through
to the factors and constraints which need to be applied to the decision
problem. This stage of the process refrains from providing any spatially
referenced data as this may create a bias in a persons decisions made with
regards to a particular problem. The initial text based stage of the process
is intended to establish the generic rules and allows the user to build
up a set of preferences in relation to the problem. If they are happy with
there preferences the user then progresses on to the next stage.

Stage 3 introduces the geographical
element of the decision making problem by representing relevant datasets on a map. Care needs to be taken in presenting this type of information
to the user, in reality a non GIS trained public. It is likely that any
reference to a GIS would confuse the user, particularly in the UK where
there is little experience, if any, of publicly available GIS. The user
chooses datasets which they think are important to the problem and can
weight their importance accordingly. Once they are happy with their choices
and decisions they run the model which interprets their choices and displays
potential sites for the particular problem.

Figure 5: Decision Flow
Chart

If the user is satisfied
with the outcome they can submit their idea or proposal to the system which
is stored for future use by the relevant decision making authority. It
is also possible to allow other members of the public to view what decisions
other people have made. There are several methodological and cognitive
issues regarding where in the whole process the public should be allowed
to view other peoples’ ideas. It could be argued that this should made
available in Stage 2 before they start weighting their choices and decisions
but it may be argued that this may ‘cloud’ the judgement of many people
who may be influenced by the choices of others.

It is envisaged that through
the development, application and monitoring of these three case studies
at different spatial scales some of the aims and questions raised at the
beginning of this paper will begin to be answered and that on-line GIS
systems can be applied to other real world decisions problems.

Conclusions

The research outlined here
is on-going and several important issues concerning public access to the
WWW are possibly more important than the actual ability to develop systems
which the public can understand and use. It needs to be recognised that
access to the WWW is still relatively limited in the UK although the potential
for increasing this appears to becoming a reality. These issues are discussed
further in other work by Carver and Peckham (in press). The provision of
public access points in council offices, libraries and community centres
etc. are likely to overcome these concerns.

The research being undertaken
recognises the problems associated with public access and in two of the
three cases studies points of access to the Web are being provided as a
method to overcome the immediate problem associated with this. If planning
authorities and other decision making organisations wish to see an increase
in public participation they have to realise the need to provide public
access points in libraries, community centres and other public areas and
buildings which the general public can easily access.

It is suggested that in particular
planning problems and policy formulation process participatory on-line
systems will become a useful means of informing the public and to allow
access to data and planning tools such as on-line GIS as an additional
means of public participation in the UK planning process. These will provide
mechanisms for the exploration, experimentation and formulation of decision
alternatives by the public in future planning processes and have the potential
to move the public further up the participatory ladder.

Acknowledgements

This research is being undertaken
in the School of Geography at
the University of Leeds and is funded by the Economic and Social Research
Council’s Virtual Society? Programme.